Whale Pot Bay (12 page)

The dig was making good progress. The remains of the whaleboat were now fully uncovered. It was surprising that there was anything left, considering it was almost two hundred years old. We knew the age because we found a brass plaque near where the bow would have been, stating:

Whaleboat Cachamor
Sydney, 1820

Melanie said that the name was a play on ‘cachalot’ which was a common name the whalers gave to sperm whales.

While the brass plaque had survived OK, the many iron fittings were mostly layers of rust. There was little doubt that if we tried to move the boat, it would fall apart. However, moving it was important if we were to complete the dig, because the metal-detector was saying there were large bits of metal inside, and we needed to see what they were.

We decided to dig below the boat so that it could be lowered into the sand and buried. It would then stay there until experts came and found a way of shifting it.

The excavating took two days. Only then did we find that the metal bits inside were a harpoon and a lance. These were the weapons used to get the whales: the harpoon to catch and maim, followed by the lance to
finish the whales off. At first I found them fascinating in a macabre sort of way. That changed when Colin showed us a video of modern-day whalers using very similar weapons to kill whales in the seas around Antarctica. It sickened me that after everything we now knew about whales, we were still as barbaric towards them as we had been two hundred years before.

I suppose we were stupid to think that the news about Pimi wouldn’t leak out somehow. It was the squid that gave it away. Pimi was soon eating so much that we had to order it in at a hundred kilos at a time. That created storage problems: where do you store such a huge amount of fish bait? The answer was to use a refrigeration container that Wally had out the back of the pub. Unfortunately, on the day that the delivery was made the pub had customers, and one of them became very interested. Wally told us about it one night when we went to the pub for dinner.

‘This guy came in by himself and ordered a beer. He couldn’t stay still. He marched around the place, staring out of windows, thumping tables, kicking chairs, and generally making a nuisance of himself. At one stage he stood for a long time, staring at the photo of the whales. Then he raised his hand and made a shooting motion at them.
Poof poof
he went with his finger. Then walked away with an evil smile on his face.’

‘What did he look like?’ I asked.

‘Young. Not all that big. Bit weedy, actually. Cleanshaven.’

‘What about his head?’

‘Can’t say. He was wearing a beanie. I can tell you about his eyes, though. They were crazy. Do you want to know what I think?’ he asked, leaning forward as if about to reveal a secret. ‘I think he was on drugs.’

Dad and I looked at each other and tried not to smile. Wally always thought people were on drugs. If somebody didn’t conform to Wally’s idea of sensible behaviour, they had to be taking drugs. It was a bit of a joke around Hauruanui.

‘What about the squid?’ asked Dad.

‘Yeah, yeah, be patient. I was getting there. Don’t rush me.’ He looked offended for a while, before continuing, ‘Well, this guy was just about to leave when the fisheries truck pulls in and starts unloading. I go out to give a hand and find him staring at the boxes as if we’re unloading gold. His mind’s ticking over about something. He stayed there all the time while we unloaded the truck. It was annoying, but I couldn’t ask him to go away, could I? That would only alert him that it was something hush-hush.’

‘Did he say anything?’ I asked.

‘Not a word. At the end I went around the back to lock the freezer, and when I came back he was gone. I haven’t seen him since.’

Molly brought the food out then, and that was the end of the conversation, but not of my thoughts. I knew who the man was—the eyes were the giveaway. It was Vermin. He was still around Hauruanui, and, unfortunately, he now knew that Pimi was alive.

From then on, I started out slightly earlier each day so I could inspect Scatworm’s hideout at a time when he was
unlikely to be there. If either he or Vermin were planning to take photographs, I figured they would go there: it gave a perfect view of anything happening down in the bay.

I was right. It was the third morning after the pub dinner that it happened. I had just begun my inspection of the hideout when I heard voices coming from above me. I looked up and saw Scatworm and Vermin picking their way through the scrub on the opposite side of the gulley. Within seconds, I was lying flat on the ground under a thick bush, hoping they hadn’t seen me.

Soon the voices were close enough for me to make out what they were saying.

‘—the same whale?’ That was Scatworm.

‘For certain. It’s got this great gash across its back,’ replied Vermin, almost with pride. ‘You wait ’til you see it.’

By then the voices were almost beside me.

‘And they’re feeding it with squid?’

‘Yeah! Tonnes and tonnes of the stuff.’

They came into view, less than five metres away from me. Vermin was dressed in his camouflage kit, but without the rifle. That didn’t make him any less scary. He walked in a way as if he was ready to attack anything that moved.

They approached the edge until they were looking into the bay.

‘There she is,’ said Vermin. ‘Just like I told you.’

Together they looked at her for a while. I knew what they were seeing, for I’d taken a look before they’d arrived. Pimi was almost outside the bay. It was a place where I often found her in the morning. I had the feeling that she went fishing at night to supplement the food we were giving her.

Scatworm lifted his camera to study her. ‘I can see what you said about the wound. It’s definitely the same whale.’ He lowered the camera. ‘This is going to make a great story. But I need her closer in than that. Plus I need to get the kids in the same shot.’

‘Or Summer,’ added Vermin.

Scatworm nodded. ‘Yeah! Milton would be even better.’

After a time, Vermin turned away from the sea to stare at his partner, as if trying to make up his mind about something. For the first time I had a good look at his eyes—they were even crazier than I’d seen at any time before. If this was how he’d been at the pub, then I could understand Wally saying he was on drugs.

‘You know,’ he said. ‘I’ve got a sure way of getting all of them in the same photo.’

‘How?’

‘Shoot the whale.’

That was too much for me. ‘No!’ I cried, before clamping my hand over my mouth

Scatworm spun around. ‘What was that?’ He seemed to be staring straight at me.

‘Rabbits!’ declared Vermin. ‘There’s vermin everywhere around here.’

Scatworm clearly didn’t agree. ‘I don’t think so. It sounded very human to me.’

‘Rabbits do that sometimes. Forget about it. What do you think of my idea?’

Scatworm thought for a while. ‘OK, explain how shooting the whale will help.’

‘It’s simple,’ replied Vermin. ‘If the whale is dead, it’s sure to float up onto the beach. Then they’ll all gather
around to mourn its passing.’ He grunted, as if the thought of mourning any animal was ridiculous. ‘That’s when you get your photos. We share the money fifty-fifty.’

‘And what happens when they discover it’s been shot?’

‘So what? How will they know who did it? I bet most of the people around here own rifles. It’s not like they’re going to launch a criminal investigation over a dead whale.’

Scatworm stared at him for a while, shaking his head slowly. ‘I’m not too sure about using guns. Things could go wrong.’

‘Not when I’m shooting, they don’t,’ snarled Vermin.

Scatworm wasn’t convinced. ‘I’ll think about it. But it won’t be in the next couple of days. I’ve got another job on. I’ll let you know after that.’

Vermin wasn’t too happy with that, yet after a while he shrugged and said, ‘Yeah, OK.’ Then he gave an evil grin. ‘Anyway, shooting’s not the best way to kill her.’

‘What is?’ asked Scatworm, pulling back from the edge and putting his camera away.

Vermin pointed over the side of the cliff. ‘You ought to see what they’ve found down there.’

Scatworm looked at him crossly. ‘Have you been snooping around down there?’

‘Yeah! What of it?’

‘If you get seen, you’ll wreck the whole thing.’

‘They won’t catch me. I can move like a phantom. I could be right next to them and they’d never see me.’

Scatworm snorted. ‘Yeah, I bet.’ Then after a pause,‘ So what have they found?’

‘A dirty big harpoon,’ replied Vermin, excitedly. ‘It’s massive. That’s the thing to use; standing up on a boat and
thrusting it into the whale’s brain. That’s the way I’d kill the whale.’

‘Just like Captain Ahab,’ suggested Scatworm.

‘Captain who?’

‘Ahab. He fought a huge sperm whale called Moby Dick.’

‘I’ve heard of the whale. Did this Ahab guy kill it?’

‘No,’ replied Scatworm. ‘The whale killed him.’

Vermin gave a cackle of a laugh. ‘Not a happy ending then?’

‘Yes and no,’ said Scatworm. ‘Depends whose side you’re on—the whale’s or the whalers’. Anyway, nobody liked the captain. By the end he was quite mad.’ He turned and moved away from the cliff to head back in my direction. As he went past, I heard him mutter, ‘Just like you, Scott Grey. Just like you.’

I felt I had no choice but to tell the others about what I’d overheard in the gulley. The opportunity came later in the morning when Milt came down to the beach. We stood on the sand, watching Steph out in the water practising her surfing. She could now knee-surf without using her hands for support, and on a couple of occasions she had very nearly managed to stand.

As we watched, I repeated the conversation I’d overhead. Milt listened without comment, although I could sense his growing anger, especially when I spoke about them shooting Pimi.

For a while, after I’d finished, he silently gazed out to sea. Then he asked, ‘You think he was serious about the shooting?’

‘I don’t know,’ I replied. ‘He’s probably mad enough to do it. I’ve seen him with a gun.’

Milt jerked his head around. ‘Have you? Around here?’

There was nothing I could do then, except tell the story about the magpies. Milt plainly was not happy about them being killed, but he let it go.

When I’d finished, he said, ‘Right, that changes things a lot. This man is undoubtedly dangerous.’ He breathed deeply for a while. ‘I think it’s time to bring in the police. Someone’s going to get hurt if something’s not done about it.’ He moved towards the elevator. ‘I’ll go and do it right now. I’ll soon make sure those two don’t come around here anymore.’

He rang our place that night to report back. The police had been very helpful. Trespass notices had been presented to both Stuart Weston and Scott Grey—they could now be arrested if they came onto the farm.

They had also checked out Vermin’s firearms license and found that, unfortunately, he could legally own a rifle, otherwise they would have confiscated it immediately.

After the call, the family had lots of questions about what was happening. They’d heard me mention a gun, so I really had no option but to tell them about it, including the killing of the magpies. I just told them that Vermin had a rifle; I didn’t mention that he’d threatened to use it on Pimi. Steph didn’t need to know about that; it would only upset her. The other thing I left out was Vermin’s wild talk about using the harpoon. That was just showoff, crazy talk—something like that was never going to happen.

I stopped my early-morning solo visits to Whale Pot Bay, because now someone else was keeping an eye on the gulley. As Steph and I drove to the bay each morning, we would see a station hand sitting in a ute on the top of a nearby rise. Milt had arranged for him to be there for a few days, just in case Scatworm and Vermin didn’t get the message.

After five days it was felt safe to call off the surveillance. In its place the station manager shifted a mob of sheep onto that part of the farm. They would soon tell us if something was amiss.

Over that period, a major discovery was made in the excavation. We found two kitchen stools tucked under the cliff where the whaleboat had been. However, these were no ordinary stools; they were two vertebrae from the backbone of a sperm whale.

They were huge. I’d seen plenty of sheep skeletons around Hauruanui Station, so I knew what normal vertebrae looked like. To say the whales’ vertebrae were a hundred times bigger would not be an exaggeration. It helped me understand how truly enormous an adult sperm whale must be, and how tiny Pimi was in comparison. If Pimi had been a true sperm whale, it would have been impossible to keep her fed.

Fortunately, she wasn’t, and we were managing well. It was even becoming easier, as she required fewer squid with each meal. Without doubt, she was feeding for herself.
Some days we wouldn’t see her until after lunchtime.

In a way I was hoping that one day she wouldn’t come back at all. That way she’d be safe. Steph didn’t share my view. She wanted the complete happy ending: Pimi would fully recover, have her baby, and only then would she swim off into the deep, blue Pacific Ocean and live happily ever after.

These dreams gained support when Colin found that Pimi was producing milk. He said that the birth would be only a few days away—definitely within a week. After that, Steph couldn’t wait to get up in the morning and rush to the bay to see what had happened overnight.

It was on the third of these mornings that we found something different. Not at the bay, but down in the valley where I’d crashed that first day with Steph. As we drove along the ridge, we found all the sheep facing the same way and staring down into the valley—a sure sign that something was different. I stopped the jeep to take a look.

‘What’s wrong?’ asked Steph, impatient to get to the bay.

‘I’m not sure. But something’s happening down there.’

She sniffed the air. ‘There’s a smell.’

By then I could smell it, too. ‘Smoke,’ I said grimly. ‘There’s a fire.’

‘Is that a problem?’

I didn’t reply immediately: I was trying to figure out how the fire might have started. Something wasn’t right about it. ‘We’d better investigate.’

Fear swept her face. ‘You’re not driving down there again, are you?’

‘No, Steph,’ I said gently. ‘I wouldn’t do that to you
now.’ I climbed out of the jeep. ‘You stay here while I take a look. I won’t be long.’

‘What do you think it is?’ she asked, anxiously.

I pointed to the sheep. ‘Maybe they’re having a baa-baacue. ’

‘Ha, ha, ha!’ she jeered; yet as I turned to go I saw that a smile had replaced her anxious look.

While my stupid joke might have helped Steph’s nervousness, its effect on me soon faded as I made my way into the light scrub. The most likely cause of the fire was that some person had lit it, and I had an idea who that might be. I stopped for a moment, unsure of whether to go on or not. Eventually I continued; taking more care and trying to stay out of sight by creeping through the thicker manuka.

The smell of smoke was stronger in the lower part of the valley. It was then that I began to detect a second smell. It took me a while to identify it, but when I did my fear level increased considerably—it was the sickly, sweet odour of blood. After another pause I pushed on, feeling that it was important to confirm my suspicions, even though by then my heart was bashing away like a pile driver.

The surrounding sheep showed me when I was near the source of the smell: they were staring at a spot as if locked in place by fear. The spot was where one of their mates had been slaughtered by having its throat cut. The gut had been opened, spilling the insides onto the grass.

I stood looking at it, puzzled that there were no other cuts. Normally, if someone killed a sheep it was to get the meat; but apart from the gut, the rest of the animal was intact. It didn’t make sense.

I never got the time to work out the answer. Suddenly,
my body was gripped in a vice-like clamp and my head jerked back by a hand over my mouth.

‘Not a sssound, young Jake,’ hissed a voice right by my ear. ‘Do not ssspeak until I sssay ssso.’

Without lessening his grip, Vermin shoved me forward, towards the sheep. ‘Take a good look at that, young Jake.’ He pushed me down until my head was almost touching the congealed blood surrounding the cut that had opened the throat. ‘Smell it, and remember it.’

I couldn’t help but smell it. Yet it was different from before; now his hot breath on my face was adding a strange, chemical odour—the stink of some drug he’d been sniffing or smoking. For the first time in my life I felt genuine terror. This man was drugged-up and out of control—who knew what he might do?

It must have been only a few seconds, and yet to me it seemed like a lifetime before he pulled me back. ‘Scary, isn’t it?’ he chuckled.

I couldn’t respond.

‘OK,’ he continued, ‘keep that image in your mind, because I’m going to let go of you now. But you need to be very careful what you do. Understand?’

I tried to nod my head, but nothing would move.

‘Good! Now that you’ve interrupted my breakfast, you might as well come and join me.’ With his hand gripping my arm, he led me into a group of bigger manuka bushes.

In the middle was a clearing containing his camp, which was nothing more than a small fire, and a bed made out of dry grass. Suspended over the fire were strips of flesh I recognized as heart. He’d killed the sheep so that he could eat its heart for breakfast.

‘Take a seat,’ he said, as if we were in his lounge at home. ‘You can watch me eat.’

So I did, and slowly my terror eased back until I was just scared. As he ate, I had the chance to study him. In addition to the camouflage gear, he had covered his face, head and hands with black makeup. In his crazy mind, he probably thought he was at war. I scanned his camp for the rifle, but the only weapon seemed to be the knife strapped to his waist.

‘Is anybody else with you?’ he asked, with his mouth full of meat.

‘No,’ I lied.

‘Good. So there’s no rush.’

‘What are you going to do with me?’ I asked, although not sure whether I wanted to hear the answer or not.

‘I’m thinking about it.’

‘You’re not meant to be here. There’s a tresspass order against you.’

‘Oh how naughty of me,’ he jeered, slapping his hands. ‘Do you think I’ll get into trouble?’

I didn’t answer.

He laughed. ‘They’ve got to catch me first.’

After a while I asked, ‘Why are you doing this?’

‘Doing what?’

‘Hanging around here, pestering Milton Summer. He hasn’t done anything to you.’

In answer, he stuffed his mouth with the rest of the heart and chewed away noisily.

When he’d finished, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and studied me for a while, before saying, ‘I’ll tell you what Mister Milton Summer has done. He
prances around a stage, singing soppy songs, and makes millions and millions from doing it. Then he comes over here and builds dirty big castles on our land like he’s more important than we are.’ His nostrils flared as he breathed deeply, dredging up more venom against the man he hated. ‘That’s what he’s done. And he’s going to have to—’

He stopped suddenly, leaping silently to his feet. I hadn’t heard anything, but he clearly had.

‘Jake!’ called a voice. ‘Where are you?’ It was Steph.

Then a male voice joined in ‘Jake! Are you OK?’

Instantly, Vermin was on me, squashing me to the ground. ‘You said there was no one else,’ he hissed. ‘I don’t like being lied to.’

‘Jake! Jake!’ The calling was now more urgent.

Vermin squeezed his arm against my throat, blocking my breathing. His eyes were beginning to show panic.

‘Jake!’ Steph was getting closer.

I was starting to gag, trying to get oxygen.

Then a scream split the air—long, loud and terrifying. Steph had just found the dead sheep.

Vermin squeezed harder. ‘I’ve got a message for Mister Milton Summer,’ he said, applying even more pressure. ‘You tell him from me that his precious whale is going to die. And I’ll make sure the whole world knows about it. You tell him that. Let’s see how many people still love him when they know he’s a whale killer.’ Then he gave one final squeeze and was gone, leaving me lying on the ground gasping for air.

‘Jake!’ screamed Steph. ‘Please say something. Say something.’

‘Here,’ I croaked. ‘I’m in here.’ And then I passed out.